578 HELMS v. FRANCISCUS.

its authority; and especially if it appeared that the husband had
nothing to settle, and was a beggar, marrying her for the sake of
her fortune, the court has been in the habit of not permitting him
to touch that fortune, which was his sole object, and of having the
whole settled upon the wife, (j)

In this instance the plaintiff Anna can, in no sense, be consi-
dered as a ward of this court, and, therefore, nothing of the nature
of a contempt of the court can be imputed to her husband. Yet,
those cases, in relation to wards of court, may be adduced to shew
that the court, under some peculiar circumstances, allows itself to
take into consideration the sinister views and objects of the hus-
band in marrying his wife; and if the court can be satisfied that
he was actuated chiefly or altogether by sordid motives; that he
married the woman merely to come at her fortune, it will interpose
to save the wife from such most grievous of all frauds, and have
her whole fortune settled upon her exclusively. For, in those
cases, there is nothing so very peculiar in being a ward of court;
it is not so much upon the ground of any species of contempt or
affront to the court itself; it is the corrupt motives of the husband;
the fraud and delusion practised by him upon frankness and inno-
cence, which affords the strong ground upon which the court plants
its equity in directing the whole of the wife's fortune to be settled
upon her exclusively.

Here there is no direct proof of a fraudulent and corrupt inten-
tion on the part of Lewis Helms to marry this plaintiff Anna mere-
ly as a means of getting her fortune into his hands; but there are
circumstances in the case which go far to shew that his motives
were, by no means, as correct as they ought to have been. Her
age; the pecuniary situation of the parties; the plan he formed
so soon after marriage, although an ignorantly contrived one, to
have the legacy transferred to him by a power of attorney, and a
will executed by his wife; her refusal; the open rupture that soon
followed, and the disclosure, from his papers, of his bad character,
are facts which, when taken together, it will be difficult to recon-
cile with any other than sordid motives on his part.

I have met with no instance where the wife was not a ward of
the court, in which the whole of her fortune has been settled on
her, merely on the ground of the fraudulent or base motives of the

(j) Butler v. Freemen, Amb. 302; Wells v. Bice, 5 Ves. 398; Ball r. Coutts, 1
Ves. a Bea. 303.